GP Cina, prove venerdì– 10/04/2015

Lewis Hamilton led a Chinese Grand Prix Formula 1 practice session punctuated by a high-speed incident for Felipe Massa, brake failure for Daniil Kvyat and a spectator crossing the track.

Nico Rosberg could only manage fifth in the second Mercedes, with Kimi Raikkonen emerging as Hamilton’s closest rival and Daniel Ricciardo putting his Red Bull between Raikkonen and Sebastian Vettel’s Ferraris in third.

The spectator incident was the first curiosity. The man accessed the track on the pit straight and ran across to the pitwall between cars before climbing into the pitlane, where he was apprehended.

At that point, Hamilton led Rosberg by a tenth of a second following the early medium-tyre runs, with the Mercedes formation a second clear of the rest.

Raikkonen was their closest rival, and initially managed the best soft-tyre lap of anyone, leaping to a 1m37.662s to lead the session.

That was seven tenths better than Vettel and Rosberg – who had a messy final sector – could manage.

But Hamilton was able to put together a tidier lap than his team-mate and came through in 1m37.219s to steal Ferrari’s limelight.

The Red Bulls sat out the first half of the session and were then interrupted by a red flag when they did join in.

Felipe Massa lost his Williams at high speed under braking at the end of the back straight, scraping the wall in the hairpin run-off with the front of his sideways car.

Although there appeared to be only minimal damage, Massa parked in the run-off and a stoppage was required to retrieve the car.

When Ricciardo did get chance to do a flying lap, he shot between the Ferraris to go third, with Kvyat taking sixth.

But Kvyat’s session then came to an early end when smoke started pouring from his rear brakes.

Even though he followed Red Bull’s advice to proceed very slowly back towards the pits, the Russian could not slow down sufficiently into the Turn 14 hairpin and skated all the way to the wall.

Kvyat still held his top-six place as by that time the field had switched to long runs – which were enlivened by Rosberg and Raikkonen managing several corners of unusually spicy wheel-to-wheel racing for a practice session.

There were signs of light for McLaren, as its new alliance with Honda appeared in the top 10 in a session result for the first time.

Lewis Hamilton led Nico Rosberg in a commanding Mercedes one-two in the opening practice session for Formula 1’s Chinese Grand Prix at Shanghai.

Rosberg had been the initial pacesetter on a 1m40.412s, as Hamilton’s first lap was spoiled when he locked up and ran off-course at the tight Turn 14 hairpin.

It was Rosberg’s turn to go awry on the second outings, though, locking up into Turn 6 and visiting the run-off area.

He managed to improve the benchmark to a 1m39.574s later in that run, but Hamilton outpaced it by half a second as he did a 1m39.033s just after the session’s halfway mark.

That lap kept the world champion on top to the flag, although the Mercedes continued to push on heavier fuel in the final part of the session.

In cold and breezy conditions, countless drivers had minor excursions and the Mercedes pair were among the most frequent transgressors, with Hamilton repeating Rosberg’s Turn 6 error and later skittering sideways off-track at Turn 1 after losing the back end mid-corner.

When Hamilton established himself on top, the Mercedes were nearly two and a half seconds clear of the rest of the field.

That margin came down, but even Malaysian GP winner Sebastian Vettel’s best lap for Ferrari was still 1.1s off the pace as he took third.

That lap came in the final seconds of the session, and until that point Vettel had looked set to end up 1.5s down on the leader.

Three Ferrari-powered cars chased the Mercedes, with Kimi Raikkonen slotting in behind team-mate Vettel and Felipe Nasr making a late jump to fifth for Sauber.

Renault’s best cars were sixth to eighth – Red Bull duo Daniel Ricciardo and Daniil Kvyat leading Toro Rosso man Carlos Sainz Jr, who swiftly escaped a spin at Turn 1 in the first part of the session.

The Williams of Valtteri Bottas and Felipe Massa completed the top 10, despite Massa spinning down the run-off at the hairpin on a late run.

Pastor Maldonado spent a long spell in third for Lotus before falling back to 11th.